


The Key

by Severina



Category: Oz (1997)
Genre: Community: hardtime100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-05
Updated: 2009-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby has a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Key

**Author's Note:**

> Season Four.  
> Prompt 21: I've Got A Secret (LJ's Hardtime100 Community)

Toby likes doing laundry.

He likes the scent of fabric softener, the hum of the dryers, the way the improper ventilation lends the room a slightly humid air. He likes the normalcy of the routine; wash, dry, fold, just like anyone else, just like other people who are not being held as guests of the state. He likes that it's quiet -- the addicts don't use there, the Italians and Latinos don't meet there, the Christians and the Muslims don't preach there, and the only one who deals there is O'Reily, jittery quick in his transactions, in and out almost before Toby can blink.

He likes that the memories here are good ones -- his first taste of Chris, the first time he truly owned what he'd been feeling in his heart for long months. And if there are less happy memories here, too, well… Toby is learning to compartmentalize.

He dumps the contents of the mesh laundry bag out onto the table and sorts the items quickly and efficiently -- boxers, white T-shirts and wifebeaters, towels and hoodies in one pile; jeans and pants, dark T-shirts and thermals in another. Before consigning them to the washers he turns out the pockets of each pair of pants -- his own jeans, a ragged pair of beige chinos, Chris's grey work-out shorts. As he works he remembers perching on the sturdy table in the little sun-lit laundry room off the kitchen of his home, usually with a beer in hand, watching Gen do the same thing with the kids clothes as she listened to him talk about his day at the office. She'd divide her attention between uh-huh-ing in the right places at his boring stories and keeping an eye on Gary and Holly in the back yard, her stomach still swollen with the child that they would later name after his father.

The memory, like all of them now, is tinged with regret. With things unspoken, gestures that lay stillborn in the dark. The texture of the label curling away from the cold beer in his hand is a sharper memory than the look in Gen's eyes or the slant of the light on the warm marble floor.

Toby is brought back to the present when his hand comes into contact with a sharp edge. He curls his fingers around a tiny object in the pocket of Chris's prison-issue blue work pants, caught on a tangle of frayed material. He tugs sharply, feels the fabric rip, and pulls out a key.

It's tiny, the size and colour of a tarnished silver dollar, with three small notches in the leading edge. The size of a suitcase key, and he smiles to think that Chris is not only planning an escape, but already has a few pairs of boxers, threadbare socks, and thermal shirts packed away somewhere in a set of matching wheeled luggage by Samsonite.

"Something funny there, Beecher?" O'Reily calls out.

Toby closes his hand around the key instinctively, plasters a bland look on his face before facing O'Reily. "You give me an opening like that, and I just can't take it," he says. "Too easy."

"Yeah. Ha." O'Reily starts pushing his own clothes into one of the washers, looks down his nose at the two piles of garments heaped on Toby's table but doesn't say a word. Toby sneers at O'Reily's usual habit of mixing his colours and his whites, and returns the favour by holding his own tongue.

Toby knows what they think. Even Chris had pulled him aside, strong hand wrapped around his bicep, the first time he'd gone looking for Toby and found him in the laundry room doing both sets of their dirty clothes.

"You know what this looks like," Chris had said, his voice barely audible over the drone of the machines.

Toby had shrugged. "I know."

"You fought long and hard to get rid of that prag label Schillinger hung around your neck--"

"Look, I don't care," Toby had said patiently. "This has nothing to do with that."

"Yeah? You think?" Chris's eyes had hardened, his voice roughened. "You don't wanna be my bitch? Then don't act like my bitch."

Toby had tugged his arm away, felt the anger at that hated word rising, spreading, and curled his hands into fists, tapped it down with prodigious effort. "I don't care what people think," he had hissed out. "I like doing this. It's… comforting. And Chris, you hate doing laundry."

Chris had shaken his head, had walked away without another word and hadn't harassed him about it since. Sometimes he caught a look in Chris's eye that told him Chris's opinion hadn't changed on the subject, but he left it alone. That's all Toby can ask of him.

Now, Toby waits until O'Reily has overfilled his lone washer and wandered back out to the common area before opening his palm and gazing down at the curious little key. He makes a mental note to ask Chris about it later before tucking it into his own pocket for safekeeping and getting back to work.

* * *

Toby sits in front of the television in the quad not because of any interest in the show -- some daytime drama featuring women with big hair and small tits -- but because there is nothing else to do. Chris is late getting back from his work assignment, and Toby feels a niggling trace of trepidation at that, soothes himself with the thought that he would know -- just know -- if something had happened to Chris while he was away from Em City.

The fact that he'd had no indication that anything had happened to Genevieve before she took her own life does not factor into his reasoning.

He shifts in the uncomfortable plastic chair and tunes out the over-enunciated dialogue from the soap on the set, turns his attention instead to the tiny key still buried in his pocket. The key reminds him of something, and he sits for five minutes, pondering where he has seen a key like Chris's, before it finally comes to him.

The year before he had ended up in Oz, "Santa" had brought Holly a jewellery box for Christmas. Toby himself hadn't done much of the shopping that year -- there were many late nights at the office working on a complex case, he'd told Gen, and it's only now, with several years of sobriety behind him, that he can admit that most of those late nights had actually been spent on a bar stool at Gallagher's. So the first time he'd seen Holly's jewellery box had been on Christmas morning, sitting under the tree. It was bright pink, festooned with oversized flower decals, and came with a tiny key that, when inserted and wound, played a tune that caused the miniature fairy inside to whirl and dance.

Holly had loved it. At least Toby is fairly certain Holly had loved it. His memories of that morning are cloudy; he remembers the noise of the children as they scampered down the stairs and exclaimed over their presents, and he remembers attempting to soothe a raging hangover with a little hair of the dog. Beyond that, much of the day is a blur.

There are certainly no pink jewellery boxes in their pod. No cases, containers or boxes at all. His own shaving kit had come in a slim leather carrying case that did have a key, but that had been confiscated when he first arrived at Oz. There was nothing… unless Chris had hid a box. But Toby is well aware of all of Chris's hiding spots in the pod, including the one that Chris doesn't know he knows about and which contains only a wickedly sharp shank. Toby checks that spot every couple of days.

A subtle motion from his left draws him out of his reverie. Toby tugs the headphones away from his ears and meets Rebadow's eyes across the room; shifts and cuts his gaze to the Latinos huddled at one of the tables. His instinct for self-preservation kicks in and Toby rises out of his chair, walks quickly to his pod. He sees Rebadow and Busmalis doing the same thing, and a moment later O'Reily touches Cyril's arm and the two of them start making their way up the stairs.

Toby is safely ensconced in his pod less than three minutes before the fight breaks out. He turns away from the bright splash of Guerra's blood on the tile.

* * *

Lockdown.

Toby picks up a book and tries to read. Rummages through the footlocker for a magazine, stares at some blonde's tits for five minutes before closing the cover and pushing it away. Watches one of the hacks mopping Guerra's blood from the floor, and wonders whether the Latino is headed to the infirmary or the hole. Paces.

Finally he gives in to temptation and methodically searches each of Chris's hiding places. The shank is still in the last one, and Toby gazes at it for a few moments before looking around guiltily and replacing the tile. The others are empty. After deliberating for another moment, he searches his own hiding spots -- there's only two, and he's fairly certain Chris only know about one of them. He checks them both anyway.

Nothing.

The tarnished little key burns a hole in his pocket.

He leans against the wall, puts his hand in his pocket and absently fingers the key. Not a case or box, and certainly not Samsonite luggage.

His gaze lazily follows McManus as the unit manager strides purposefully over to the mop-wielding hack, gesturing with one hand while the other clutches his ubiquitous clipboard.

Toby blinks.

A diary. A journal.

Toby smiles at the thought. Though he has no proof, it _feels_ right. Chris is keeping a journal.

By the time Chris gets back, ranting about his long day and expounding on the many and varied ways in which he could whack MacEvoy and every other hack who pissed him off, Toby is relaxing on the bed with a book in hand.

"I wasn't doin' shit," Chris finishes. He whips off his jacket, bunches it in his hand. "Fucking hacks. Like I got anything to do with missing office supplies. Like I give a fucking shit about file folders!" His fingers flex compulsively around the jacket. "Cuttin' in to my personal time, stickin' their fucking noses in. Bullshit."

Toby waits until Chris has exhausted his litany of curses, makes a mental note to check on the hidden shank every day for the next week or so, then hops lightly down from the bunk and lays his hands on Chris's shoulders. He doesn't say a word, just presses down firmly, rubs his thumbs gently against Chris's neck. Feels the tension ease out of Chris's body slowly.

When Chris smiles, moves closer, drops the jacket on the floor and presses his own hands onto Toby's waist, angles his hips and thrusts forward none too subtly, Toby feels his own body respond. He squeezes Chris's shoulders a final time before stepping away. "Better?" he asks lightly.

"Tease," Chris says, but he narrows his eyes and looks out at the brightly lit quad, a hack still patrolling with one hand hitched on his belt next to his baton. He cocks his head. "Trouble?"

Toby pictures Guerra lying prone on the floor, the blood pooling around his body. He hitches himself back up onto the bunk, shrugs as he picks up his book. "Guerra."

Chris lifts a shoulder, turns away from the glass and flops down on his own bunk. Guerra and what may have happened to him, Toby knows, means nothing to Chris. The Latinos, the Italians, the bikers… they are all non-entities to Chris, not worth his time or interest unless something they do or say impacts on either Chris himself, or Toby.

Toby settles back against his pillow and picks up his book. When next he looks up at the end of a chapter, his ass numb and his eyes sore, more than two hours have passed. He squirms in an attempt to get comfortable and feels the key dig into his thigh.

Toby sets aside his book. He pulls the key out of his pocket and turns it over in his fingers, regards it curiously. "Hey," he says thoughtfully. "Chris."

"What?"

Toby looks at the key. Chris's journal -- if there is a journal -- isn't in the pod, which makes the storage room the only other logical hiding place. He pictures Chris setting aside the shelving of copy paper and boxes of Bic pens, listening at the door to ensure no one is coming before pulling a notebook out from under a loose ceiling tile or beneath a cracked floorboard; pictures him leaning against a cool brick wall, setting his private thoughts down in his tidy little scrawl.

Toby wanders what dreams are written there, what impulses crowd Chris's fertile brain until he's compelled to let them loose on the paper.

Toby presses his lips together, shakes his head and tucks the key into his pillowcase; slides it all the way down to the end so there's no issue of it falling out in the night, no matter how restless he gets, no matter how many dreams he has.

"Tobe?"

"Nothing."

Toby has barely stuffed the key away before Chris is rising from the bed, laying an arm on the coarse blanket, watching him contemplatively.

"Nothing," Toby says again. And then Armstrong is calling for lights out, and the banks of flourescents flick off one by one, and he is reaching for Chris, all thoughts of keys and journals forgotten.

* * *

The lights flicker on and Count is called almost simultaneously, and Toby blinks into the light and tries to imagine how it can possibly be six in the morning. He manages to stumble from the bunk without killing himself. His ass is still sore, but for another reason entirely, and his hamstrings ache, and he manages to pull on his pants and cast a sleepy, satisfied smile in Chris's direction before staggering out of the pod and lining up for Mineo's inspection. His smile turns smug when he realizes that Chris is looking just as sated as he feels.

After their numbers have been announced to all and sundry, Chris sprawls back on the bed and throws an arm over his eyes. Toby reaches for his T-shirt, pulls up the blankets to make his bed, and hesitates when his hand comes in contact with his pillow. He glances down, but Chris is still motionless, eyes closed behind the barrier of his arm, content to drowse until Toby is finished with his morning routine.

Toby finds the key buried in the corner of the pillow and tucks it hastily in his pocket.

He splashes around in the sink, and the cold water wakes him the rest of the way up. Mint toothpaste revitalizes him. He slicks damp hands through his hair in an attempt to tame the mop his hair has become. Studies his jaw and decides that shaving can wait until later.

He checks Chris's reflection in the mirror before sliding the tiny key carefully from his pocket and putting it on the edge of the sink.

"Chris," he says. "Your turn."

He turns in time to see Chris lift his arms above his head, stretch languidly, and he can't help but wonder if that little display is for him. He lets his gaze travel from Chris's firm thighs and half-hard cock to his impressive chest before meeting his self-satisfied smile with one of his own.

"Now who's the tease?" he asks.

"Just remindin' ya what's comin' tonight, baby," Chris drawls.

"Oh, I know what's coming tonight," Toby says lightly. He crosses the pod and pushes open the door with a sigh of escaped air. "Gonna sign us up for gym time," he says over his shoulder.

Chris scrubs a hand over his face, nods and mumbles something around a yawn.

By the time he gets back, Chris has thrown on a pair of jeans and a wife-beater and is making a desultory pass over his chin with the razor. Toby eases past him to grab his hoodie off the hook; glances unobtrusively down at the ledge of the sink.

The key is gone.

"Heard there's pancakes for breakfast today," Toby says.

"Hmm," Chris murmurs. "Maple syrup?"

Toby snorts. "Only if you've got some stuffed in your pants."

"Nah, I'm just happy to see ya," Chris says with a grin.

Toby meets his eyes in the mirror, returns the smile with one of his own. He has a feeling this is going to be a good day.


End file.
